Bipartisan Congressional Efforts to Prevent Israeli-Palestinian Peace

by Stephen ZunesMay 31, 2012

H.R. 4133 calls for a dramatic increase in U.S. military aid to Israel over this year’s record of $3.1 billion, providing funding not only for tanks such as this one, but also for tanker aircraft, which are only necessary for offensive military operations like bombing raids. Credit: Creative Commons/Blondie5000.

Earlier this month, the House of Representatives passed a dangerous piece of legislation (H.R. 4133) that would undermine the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, weaken Israeli moderates and peace advocates, undercut international law, further militarize the Middle East, and make Israel ever more dependent on the United States.

The margin was an overwhelming 411-2, with eight abstentions.

House minority leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Congressman Howard Berman (D-CA), the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, joined House Majority leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) and House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) in co-sponsoring the bill, an indication of how closely the Democratic Party leadership aligns with the most right-wing Republicans when it comes to U.S. Middle East policy.

Indeed, the way the Democratic Party is now allied with the Republican Right could not be more obvious than from the fact that the resolution passed on a “suspension of the rules,” a legislative procedure reserved for legislation on noncontroversial topics requiring little debate and allowing for a quick vote.

Exempting Israel

A number of provisions in the bill are highly disturbing to those who support Middle East peace, justice for Palestine, and genuine security for Israel.

The “findings” of the bill, rather than praising the growth of democratic movements in the Arab world, bemoans “the fall of some regimes long considered to be stabilizing forces.” This emphasis is indicative of how little either party cares for democracy in the Middle East. Similarly, rather than praise the grassroots pro-democracy movements and their strategic nonviolent action, the bill blames Iran for “seeking to exploit the dramatic political transition underway in the region to undermine governments traditionally aligned with the United States.”

United in the belief that U.S. allies should somehow be exempt from accountability under international law, the bill calls on the United States to veto any “one-sided” resolutions at the United Nations Security Council directed at Israel—even resolutions that are reasonably critical of Israel’s ongoing violations of international humanitarian law. Its scope includes previous UN Security Council resolutions and resolutions that address possible future crimes against humanity and related war crimes, such as those documented by reputable human rights groups during Israel’s recent military assaults on Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

As an indication of how the Democratic Party is now even further to the right than former President George H.W. Bush, the bill calls for additional unconditional loan guarantees to Israel—guarantees that the former Republican president tried to make conditional on a freeze in construction of Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied territories.

Although there has never been any real debate regarding the commitment of the United States to Israel’s security, this resolution takes the unprecedented step of insisting that this commitment be within the context of defending Israel as an explicitly “Jewish state.” The Israeli government certainly has the right to identify itself as a Jewish state or anything else. But this clause not only demonstrates a lack of concern about the security interests of the more than 20 percent of Israelis who are not Jewish and the millions of Palestinians who are effectively under Israeli military control. This resolution appears to be making an unprecedented commitment by the United States to guarantee the religious, ethnic, or cultural identity of a foreign country.

Similarly, although the Palestine Authority and virtually every other Arab government has pledged to make peace with Israel, including strict security guarantees, in return for an Israeli withdrawal from occupied Arab territory, the bill insists that the United States not just “encourage Israel’s neighbors to recognize Israel’s right to exist,” but its “right to exist as a Jewish state.” The Palestine Authority and other Arab states—noting that no peace treaty in history has ever required recognition by one state of the other’s religious, ethnic, or cultural identity—have therefore rejected such a prerequisite. By including this new provision for Arab-Israeli peace in this resolution, which was not required of Egypt and Jordan in their peace treaties with Israel, it appears to be designed to sabotage any possible additional peace agreements between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

Arms Up

With this bill, Congress has made peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors all the more difficult. It has also created a situation that requires increased U.S.-Israeli military cooperation and increased profits for U.S. arms manufacturers. Indeed, the bill calls for dramatically expanded U.S. arms aid and arms sales to Israel.

For example, instead of simply providing Israel with enough deterrent capability to ward off any potential combination of threats, the legislation calls on the United States to ensure that Israel maintains a “qualitative military edge,” presumably in order to have such a dominating military presence that the right-wing government can maintain its ability to invade, occupy, and subjugate its neighbors—in effect, to keep Israel in a constant state of war and increasingly dependent on the United States. To make sure President Obama takes this clause seriously, the bill requires the White House to put together a report every year detailing how the United States is ensuring that Israel’s superiority is being maintained. No such requirement is made in regard to any other country.

The legislation calls for a dramatic increase in U.S. military aid to Israel over this year’s record of $3.1 billion in order to ensure Israel right of self-defense. The bill radically redefines “defense” to include military equipment that has generally been seen as offensive in nature, such as tanker aircraft, which are only necessary for offensive military operations like bombing raids and troop deployments in far-off countries such as Iran.

U.S. military aid to Israel is already higher than the foreign aid programs to all of sub-Saharan Africa combined. With overall foreign aid already being reduced, this bill will translate into even deeper cuts in international assistance programs that aid the poor—such as vaccinations and other disease prevention, clean water initiatives, food aid, sustainable development projects, and other programs that save countless lives.

Some “progressive” organizations like MoveOn and Democracy for America are raising money to support a number of the right-wing Democrats who cosponsored and voted for this extraordinary dangerous legislation. Unlike previous periods, when liberal groups stood up against both Republicans and Democrats who supported repressive right-wing governments and increased militarization in Central America and Southeast Asia, liberal groups today have no problem working to re-elect Democratic hawks who demonstrate a similar hostility to human rights, international law, and demilitarization in the Middle East.

Without such pressure from the left, the Democrats have little incentive to change their right-wing foreign policy.

Stephen Zunes, a contributing editor of Tikkun, is a professor of politics and coordinator of Middle Eastern studies at the University of San Francisco.

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This reminds me of those parts of the Bible where the writers tell us that God “hardened their hearts”, and “closed their eyes so that they might not see” in order that whomever was off course would stay there, so God could destroy them, rather than forgive them. It’s like the US is on a ship of the damned and the Captain has gone mad, the crew keeps stoking boilers ready to explode, and the passengers keep chanting “Forward! Forward!” towards the rocks over which, already, waves can be heard crashing.

Foreign policy in the Middle East seems to have become unglued from reality and any interest America might have there in the future. It often seemed crazy that England or Russia did what they did, a century ago, but not like this.

This is not going to end well, for Israel certainly; nor for the US. And I’m willing to bet that when it all comes crashing down, Americans aren’t going to get any more introspective than the Germans of 1919; rather, we’re going to want a scapegoat upon which to heap the burdens of their fears and anger at our by then reduced and terrifying predicament.

As far as I can see, whenever a project is as removed from public scrutiny as Israel is, there is generally something terribly wrong with it, that they want to keep from the voters and investors. Given how questioning Israel is practically Taboo in America, I’d say something is desperately wrong and we need to redouble our efforts to ask the hard questions, so long over due.